Sturgill Simpson

I wanted to make an album that takes a journey through all my favorite periods in music and then culminates in something that will most likely end my career.

I had a great job with the railroad, a good salary.

I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don't really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it's a slippery slope.

There are no expectations other than those I place on myself to be a great father and husband.

Even with most finite planning, you never know what the final result will reveal itself to be until it's staring back at you.

I could go back to the railroad. I liked that job.

I pretty much just hang out with the kid. I want, like three more, because that's all I ever want to do.

I want people to focus on listening, not the image. And I want to play to everyone: rednecks, dubstep kids, punk rockers, and people who like as-real-as-it-gets country music.

I'm just gonna write a record for my kid, and if people hate it, it doesn't matter.

I'll never get tired of being told I sound like Waylon Jennings, but I don't hear it myself.

I don't pretend to be an astrophysicist or anything, even though I do read about certain things like metaphysics and cosmology that I've always just been really interested in. I don't pretend to be able to sit down and pontificate on any of these subjects.

Atlantic has been great to me. They didn't flinch when I told them I was self-producing, and nobody was popping their head in the studio.